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Julio B

Julio B

has 10 followers and is following 10 people

Sci-Fi lover, computer tech guy.
  • Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
  • member since March 10, 2008

Reviews

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Displaying 1-10 of 15 reviews
  • The Caves of Steel
    • Rated 4 stars

    “From the preface, you get that Asimov wanted to write a novel about robots and old, classic mystery novel. And sure as hell, he accomplished it.

    I read Robots of the Dawn a long time ago and just now I'm going back to the beginning of the series. I reckon this is a VERY nice beginning for a series and I'm all for getting The Naked Sun after this.

    But back to _this_ book: It's a great mix of Scifi and mystery novel. I mean, Asimov surely shown the world it was possible to mix both genres and make a story worth any of them. It has it sad moments (at least, for someone who read the other books and know what Baley is capable of) and the ending is, sure enough, a nice revelation, even with some hints of "who is guilty" there and there. But the pieces never fall in place till Asimov puts them down.

    Worth read, for any Scifi or Mystery lovers.”

    Julio B wrote this review Friday, June 25, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • Rama Revealed
    • Rated 2 stars

    “Overall is a good book. Too bad is just "overall".

    Clarke still pisses me off with some extremely meticulous description of things. It is really tiring to read for 2-3 pages a description (and I repeat "description" -- it's not a plot moving, it's simply a description of something) just to be used to improve the plot for nearly just one page and one phrase later.

    And that's the biggest problem with the book: Long, long descriptions of things that are barely touched in the future and move the plot very little, if any. It makes it extremely boring to read.

    Another annoying point is that points of the story are left behind and taken later. For example, the group splits and then the story tracks just one part of the group and completely forgets about the other. Then, the group joins again with very little recollection of what happened while they were split.

    The ending is also a let down. You see the pages going down and the plot gets stuck in a place and don't move. Pages and pages of emptiness about the plot.

    The story is good, but the amount of wasted time is too big to make the book enjoyable. ”

    Julio B wrote this review Monday, June 7, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • The Garden of Rama
    • Rated 3 stars

    “I had great hopes for this book. The first chapters, in the format of a journal of one of the astronauts from the Rama II book, promises a lot. The number of moral questions it raises is pretty good and gets you in the mood to keep reading just to see how the author would solve them.

    Then, out of nowhere, the book style changes to a narration and closes all the moral questions it created in the first chapters. And, at this point, the book seems to completely lose direction. It keeps jumping from topic to topic without closing the previous threads.

    In the final chapters, the book seems to be written by someone with a mild Alzheimer syndrome: topics are completely forgotten, the protagonists keep changing all the time and suddenly minor characters become major.

    The story flows, that's for sure. But it's like saying a drunk man walks forward.”

    Julio B wrote this review Sunday, April 18, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • 2061
    • Rated 1 stars

    “When I reached half of this book, I thought the best way to describe is Clark, sitting on his desk, thinking "I have this good idea for a story, but I don't know how to start it..."

    Thing is, it is a very unimpressive book. Bland, lots of small points that go nowhere... Mostly a bunch of phrases throw together with some reuse of characters from a series to say "this is part of that series."

    Really, 2061 is, so far, the worst of the books in the 2001 series. And, after finishing it, I must say that its only function is the precede 3001, which is heavily hinted in the final (short) chapter.”

    Julio B wrote this review Saturday, March 27, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • 2010
    • Rated 3 stars

    “One can't deny Clarke ability to write. "Rendevous with Rama" is awesome reading. But when he have to describe ethereal things, it becomes so hard to follow the story and for every paragraph, you have to re-read one.

    The same effect appears in 2001: In the end, when Bowman leaves his body, the story becomes so confusing it's almost impossible to keep following (or understanding) what's happening. Same goes with 1/4 of this book, due the return of Bowman.

    Apart from those parts, the other parts are, as Rama, nice to read and the story flows without a problem.”

    Julio B wrote this review Thursday, November 26, 2009. ( reply | permalink )
  • Shadow Puppets
    • Rated 2 stars

    “50 pages of real story, 322 pages of filler.”

    Julio B wrote this review Saturday, August 30, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • Children of the Mind
    • Rated 4 stars

    “Finally, a book that put some closure on Ender's story.”

    Julio B wrote this review Thursday, August 21, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • Jarhead
    • Rated 3 stars

    “I bought the book because of the movie. And that was a right decision 'cause the movie is loosely based on the book and, as usual, the book have way more information than the movie. But I must admit that the movie actually destroyed my reading, as I tried to find where the facts in the book happened in the movie. In my head, I deconstructed the movie and rebuild it based on the book. But some facts were never mentioned in the movie and some scenes never did actually happened in the book.

    First thing: the book doesn't follow a linear path. Swofford sometimes talk about his days in the army and, suddenly, slips back to his childhood. Not that the facts aren't related, but it kinda makes the book hard to read (when, say, he's describing something in the desert and slips to the days in boot camp -- sometimes I got lost trying to figure out if he was talking about the desert or bootcamp) but also provides a wider view of his emotions and decisions -- the things that he realizes took him into the war.

    Second: he is not the nice guy portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal. He wasn't afraid to tell his infidelities when he was training (with girls living in the cities near the camps before the Gulf War) and some of things giving to the "bad" companion in the movie were, actually Swofford. But a lot of the nice/cool/thoughtful things other characters did in the movie were also Swofford.

    I did actually liked reading his (and let me make this bold: *his*) views of the war. I guess Johnny, Fowler and Ditterman would have some different views and only reading all those you could get some idea of what was going on inside American soldiers minds. And then you'd have to read three other books by Iraqi soldiers to have a good view of the war. But Swofford never promised to give you the whole view -- only his.”

    Julio B wrote this review Thursday, July 17, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • Great Dune Trilogy (GollanczF.)
    • Rated 5 stars

    “A long time ago, David Linch directed a movie named "Dune." It was awesome, with a lot of explosions and fights and giant worms. Then Cryo Interactive made a game which was strongly based on that movie, so it was awesome too.

    A few years later I saw a Dune series, but there was no worms, no fights and there was a lot of talk. And I thought "This is not Dune. At all!"

    And then I got the book. That's when I realized that the movie doesn't have anything related to the original story. Dune is not fights and worms, it's a lot about strategy and planing, with each character with its own desires and going forward for it. Yes, there are wars and fights and worms, but not in the same way the movie put them. It was more deep than that. It's one of those books where you keep reading just to find out if the characters will get what they want.”

    Julio B wrote this review Tuesday, July 8, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • Excession
    • Rated 4 stars

    “It's a good book, lots of twists and comes to a conclusion. The biggest problem is the non-interesting stuff. The author takes ages to complete some idea (the first paragraph, 100+ lines, could be shortened to "The ship approached the tower with the whales around it.") Also, at some chapter, there is a large description of a guy with wings making love in space with some four armed girl, when the point was simply to describe what did happen with a robot in the second chapter. A whole chapter for something that's used in one line. And, when the winged guy tells this to another person, nothing happens. So the whole chapter just sits there, describe a lot of non-interesting stuff and adds nothing to the story.

    But, when you remove this cruft from the story (about 60% of it all, unfortunately), you have a pretty interesting story about space exploration, what's inside minds (oh, and Space Ships with minds! That was completely awesome!) and how we deal with the unknown.

    I would surely give 6 stars to this story if there wasn't so much cruft on it (even if the story would be only 100 pages long.)”

    Julio B wrote this review Monday, June 2, 2008. ( reply | permalink )
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Displaying 1-10 of 15 reviews

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